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fawnridge69

RAIN! It's raining!!!

fawnridge (Ricky)
15 years ago

My God, I think I'm getting a chubbie! If it's still raining this afternoon, I'm going to pour a dram of single malt and walk outside to let some rainwater mix with the whisky.

For those of you with irrigation systems, allow me to give you some insight into the science behind them versus rainwater...

If you irrigate your landscape and garden with city water, you are feeding everything just a bit of chlorine. Chlorine inhibits plant growth. So it's a trade off, the water keeps the plants alive but the chlorine does some damage in terms of slowing or stopping new growth.

If you irrigate from a canal or a water-retention pond (I'm tired of calling this thing behind my house a lake) you are also sucking up the various pesticides and herbicides your neighbors spray on their lawns. The guys who spray from big trucks are the worst offenders, but hey, if you've got a lawn, might as well keep it green, right? Once again, you're sustaining life, but not really helping growth.

So, what's the magic in rainwater? Nitrogen, my friends, free fertilizer from heaven. Rain, falling from hundreds, nay thousands of feet above us passes through the atmosphere, pushing nitrogen, chlorophyll's best friend, to the ground. Of course, if you lived in Los Angeles, the nitrogen kinda bangs into the smog and stays there, but with our relatively clean air, all that stuff roars into the ground and activates the growth process.

Bottom line? Don't bank on irrigation to make your stuff grow, just be happy it stays alive.

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